This is one of the gloomiest candles we've ever seen, back from when children were taught how to make black holes at home.  From With the Children on Sundays, Through Eye-Gate, and Ear-Gate into the City of Child-Soul by Sylvanus Stall, 1911.

Here's a vintage Rube Goldberg machine in the wild, from St. Nicholas magazine, 1910.

Santa Claus is really the Easter Bunny, as revealed in St. Nicholas magazine, 1915.

Here's "the end" from Sequelle, 1912.

Here's a precursor to Annie Dillard's Teaching a Stone to Talk (1982), from St. Nicholas magazine (1915).  The text reads, "Is a stone alive?"

Who is the biggest?  The man, most people would say.  But the man is really the smallest, and the little girl is the biggest.  We find proof in a perspective illusion from The Book of Knowledge (1912, pictured right).

An illustration from The Mahatma and the Hare: A Dream Story by H Rider Haggard (1911).  The caption reads: "The great white road."

An illustration from The Mahatma and the Hare: A Dream Story by H Rider Haggard (1911).  The caption reads: "My! Isn't she a beauty?"

An illustration from An Amiable Charlatan by Edward Phillips Oppenheim (1916).  The caption reads: "Ladies and gentlemen, if you please!  Nothing has happened."

Here's a precursor to the signature "Be seeing you" sign in the cult television series The Prisoner.  It's from Colliers magazine, May 17, 1919.

One hundred years ago today, on July 3, 1913, Uncle Sam came out as a cross-dresser in LIFE magazine.

A precursor to the cult television series The Prisoner: Even as a baby, he would not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. (This illustration, by William Donahey, is from The Green Book magazine, 1916.)  The caption reads, "Number? Number, please?"

"So it's 2 pm and you've got the dreaded 2 o'clock feeling." —The Grave Radio

This illustration of the dreaded 2 o'clock feeling is from Cartoons magazine, 1916.

An illustration from a 1913 issue of Metropolitan magazine.  The caption reads: "No voice nor ticking clock nor cat with velvet entrance relieved the abysmal silence of the gaping door."

Out of context, it appears that everyone is expecting the man with a beard and turban to initiate contact with the Beyond.  The caption reads: "Why not try the long-distance telephone?"  This fakir's no faker!  From The Saturday Evening Post, 1911.

"And scarcely had the last stroke of the hour ceased to resound, when a revolver shot rang out!"

This illustration is from "The Eleventh Hour" by Edwin Balmer and Wililam B. MacHarg, in Hampton's magazine, 1910.

The secret of long-distance communication is revealed in this illustration from a 1913 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.  The caption reads: "Fairy magic—telephone reality."